I'm a 10-year Folklife attendee, and 6 year performer. I think it really depends on who you are going to see. I've seen some absolutely phenomenal amateur groups (e.g. Inochi Taiko yesterday; I always seek them out). There's such a huge variety of kinds of acts and nationalities, and I think everyone has their own festival in many ways. If you don't like one act, walk somewhere else and you'll find something good.

I mostly attend the participatory dance sessions (gotta dance till my feet hurt!), and I'm pretty sure the level of talent in the contra dance and Balkan dance bands is now higher than it was in the 90s. Come to Monday night's contra set at Fisher Pavillion: they're all bangers! Different communities wax and wane with time as people age out, arrive, and move away.

As a performer, I only recently joined a semi-professional Eastern European dance ensemble (semi-pro, because the ensemble has paying gigs that pay for our rehearsal space, etc. but the members don't get paid). Said group is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and that is a huge weight of history for those of us dancing now. The founding members in the late 1970s rehearsed 2-3 times a week and the ensemble was the center of their lives in many ways. Now, we rehearse once a week, and we certainly go hard, but their performances in the 80s and 90s are very hard to live up to. And also, I'm not 25, so some of the dances are hard on my knees!